Alonso’s session came to an abrupt halt, when he stopped out on track, with an engine failure. However, the Ferrari team have stated that the engine was going to be changed anyways, and the engine already had many miles on it. Nevertheless, it is a setback to Fernando’s weekend.

Vettel set a 1.12.328, nearly half a second faster than Webber, who, apart from Lewis Hamilton, was well ahead of everyone else. Jenson Button was 4th, while Robert Kubica was 5th. Team-mate Vitaly Petrov suffered a rear wing failure, and suffered a high-speed crash at the Ferradura corner.

The Mercedes drivers of Rosberg and Schumacher were 6th and 8th, and the team were rumoured to be running a 2011-spec rear diffuser today. Rubens Barrichello was 7th, Adrian Sutil 9th, and Nick Heidfeld 10th.

Kamui Kobayashi also spun at Ferradura, but survived to get 11th place. Nico Hulkenberg was 12th, while Alonso was 13th, after setting only 20 laps. Despite this, was was still a tenth faster than Felipe Massa back in 15th.

Vitantonio Liuzzi headed the two Toro Rossos further back. Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock were 20th and 21st. Heikki Kovalainen was 22nd, while Christian Klien was a half a second faster than Bruno Senna at the back.